


The Tell

by Tyellas



Series: History is hard to know [4]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 03:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4289331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shell shocked Furiosa, guarding in the Vault, is challenged by Miss Giddy's Wasteland tell, and lanced by a memory of the young Valkyrie.  Furiosa POV in parallel to another story, “Weave a Circle,” part 8.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tell

On guard in the Vault, with the evening growing late, Imperator Furiosa was baffled when the Wives’ elderly minder hobbled over. The old woman said that she would be reciting a Tell soon. “As our guest, you are welcome to listen.”

Furiosa acknowledged this with a minimal nod. She planned to pay no attention.

It was painful to watch the pale, frail History Woman totter away. She returned to the spot where she gave her lectures: the Wives were waiting, sitting on the stone floor, and they leaned forwards when the old woman began to speak. “Tells are not an official part of your education here at the Citadel. They are part of the present – a living art form – that structures events into dynamic, interactive story. Remember what to do at the end, my dears?” She made a hand gesture that was a blatant signal for “Say Nothing More In Front Of The Imperator.” Furiosa had been seeing this gesture a lot, these past seven days. She was numb to it, as she had been about most things.

After the latest road war, when they’d finished picking the shrapnel out of Furiosa and told her the Rig and half of her crew were blasting through the gates of Valhalla together, she hadn’t cared about much of anything. The idea of building a different place for herself in the Citadel exhausted her. This throwback of a post, her best bad option while her ribs and burns finished forging back together, made everything worse. The way to get through times like this was to be like one of the rare generators husbanded below – shut down when not in use.

The Wives’ minder was fiddling with the lanterns, then picking something up. Furiosa turned away, deliberately closing her eyes. It was hard not to watch when something, anything, happened in this dull space, and looking there and back was breaking her night vision.

“This is the Kulurda Tell, or the Ballad of Swampgum Station. Today is the thirtieth oldyear anniversary of the fall of Kulurda Station. This was created by…several former residents of Kulurda…and is not performed on any other oldyear date than today. We acknowledge that we share this Tell on traditional land and we respect the long knowledge and rights of the traditional custodians. Hear and remember.”

Each statement was punctuated by a sharp, musical tap. The final words ended with a short fusillade of tapping, a pathway of sound. Something about the taps chipped at Furiosa’s memory.

Then the night was pierced with a ribboning cry, _Kulurda!_ It flowed from some cold-water well of history inside the old woman to ring from the top of the Vault.

Furiosa opened her eyes like she’d been lanced. The last time she’d heard a woman cry out in music was -

_The welcome to the Green Place._

_Standing outside the guarded entrance, as an excited child, after a cold night’s foraging. Listening to a long, shimmering call pierce the clearing dawn. “A good password, eh,” said Valkyrie’s mum, “Can’t do it without one of us!” Then she pitched her voice to reply in turn. Valkyrie said one day she wanted to give the call. Furiosa didn’t want to do it herself, but was eager to hear Val. “I can’t, yet,” Val said. “You have to be older.” The morning wind turned Val’s hair into a black banner…_

By the time Furiosa was paying attention again, the History Woman was well into the Tell. This Tell was a rough, rhythmic chant, pitched to carry and roll, underscored by the tapping, which came from two oddly resonant sticks. The Wives had placed their lanterns at the old woman’s feet, one for each of them, and her bony shadow reached high, framed in flickering warmth.

_They were tough men at Kulurda!_

Sextets whirled by. The land, the people, the eucalyptus trees, the post-nuclear refuge, the sharpshooters: there had been, according to the Tell, nowhere like Kulurda Station. There was a break for a wicked spoken word interlude that set the Wives to giggling, even shrieking, at ribaldry that had nothing to do with Immortan Joe. It occurred to Furiosa that she had the power to shut this down.

_We brewed guzzoline at Kulurda – guzzoline from the trees!_

Perhaps she’d let it go a little longer. The next several verses were gratifyingly full of data about non-drilled guzzoline. Furiosa listened intently. This knowledge had to be somewhere in the Citadel, but buried under the Gastown trades and guzzoline tokens. It was a useful reminder of where certain Wasteland factions could be getting their fuel. Furiosa threw her mind into this as a distraction from painful memories.

The old woman sat down in her own chair but maintained her volume.

_Came the raiders to Kulurda!_

Furiosa’s shoulders tightened. That had been a reason to throw herself back into the heart of the Citadel, right there. Going through that once had been enough to turn her life into …what remained. The next verses cut right to the bone of never-again. The Wives began to sob. Furiosa pressed her lips hard. The Wives, she knew too well, suffered enough. They didn’t need to hear this.

Just as Furiosa was standing to intervene, there was hard rapping outside. The Vault door shifted before opening. Furiosa stuck her head out. “What?”

A healthy-looking piece of Immortan Joe’s lesser muscle was outside, the two standard guards listening with interest. “Sir, just a warning, orange security alert.”

“Imperator,” Furiosa corrected.

“Imperator! Sir!”

“Why the alert?” Not that it would make much difference up here.

“Big Wretched gathering within the two-kay radius. A few Rock Riders in the crowd. Unusual.”

“This is my post.”

“YessirImperator, just advising.”

“Good work.” And good to know she wasn’t entirely forgotten.

As the Vault reclosed, the pieces clicked together in Furiosa’s head. “On any other date than today.” The History Woman, plucked up from the Wretched. A gathering. Was someone else down there doing the same Tell? She really was still running on fumes to not put it together immediately.

The Tell had moved on to a part involving explosions. The Wives were now clutching each others’ hands, leaning forwards. One of the lanterns had died, deepening the shadows. Furiosa sat back down. It seemed to be finishing.

At a gesture from the old woman, the Wives all raised their voices in a thin, eerie wail. When this had died away, they thumped the ground and drummed their feet, louder and louder, to cut off at a second gesture.

The old woman wiped her face beneath her eyes, beaming, then lifted an open hand. Furiosa braced herself, waiting, hoping to hear that singing cry again.

The clap-sticks drew out their rattling path of sound. Then the old woman opened her mouth. “We recall the dead, the afflicted, both ours and yours. Tonight the Tell is complete. Hear and remember.”

These final words were quiet, almost muted. They were no balm to the goading gap punched inside Furiosa by her memories.

The Immortan’s favourite Wife looked up and saw Furiosa leaning forwards intently. “Look out,” Furiosa heard her whisper, not quietly enough, to the one next to her. “ _She’s_ come back to life.”

That girl looked, too, then flowed up to stand. She clapped her hands, flinging back her red mane, and sang out, “Pile up in Toast’s room! Pile up time! You too, Miss Giddy.”

“Thank you for the Tell, Miss Giddy.”

“Audaciously chrome!”

In a flurry of lamplit limbs, they practically carried the old woman away, as if she was light as a lantern herself, and whisked a curtain on a downstairs bedroom. Their voices blended together.

Furiosa was left alone, with one lantern. Few Tells made it into the walls of the Citadel. She had never heard about a Tell like that for the Green Place.

Did that mean it endured?

She allowed herself to limp when she went over to the Vault’s great window. Ordinarily, the ground was not visible at night from the Vault. But tonight, down there, a fire had been lit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to ssstrychnine for beta reading!
> 
> \- An oral-tradition Tell featured in the movie _Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome_ , which hit theaters in 1985. Ursula Le Guin mentioned a similar oral-tradition system called a Tell in her postapocalyptic book _Always Coming Home._ Which was also published in 1985. 
> 
> \- Miss Giddy, as a white person, is able to give an Acknowledgement of Country – a statement acknowledging and respecting Australian indigenous rights.


End file.
